McCoy v. State
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Cite as 2011 Ark. 13
SUPREME COURT OF ARKANSAS
No.
CR 09-387
Opinion Delivered
JIMMY McCOY
Appellant
v.
STATE OF ARKANSAS
Appellee
January 20, 2011
APPEAL FROM THE PULASKI
COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT, CR
2006-4755, HON. CHRIS PIAZZA,
JUDGE
AFFIRMED.
PER CURIAM
On July 25, 2007, a jury found appellant Jimmy McCoy guilty of charges that included
residential burglary, aggravated robbery, and a number of kidnapping counts and imposed an
aggregate sentence of 480 months’ imprisonment. The Arkansas Court of Appeals affirmed
the judgment. McCoy v. State, CACR 08-122 (Ark. App. Sept. 17, 2008) (unpublished).
Between the time appellant filed his notice of appeal and the time the record was lodged on
appeal, appellant filed a petition for writ of error coram nobis in the trial court. The court
denied that petition, and this appeal followed. We find no abuse of discretion in the denial
of the petition and affirm.
The standard of review of a denial of a petition for writ of error coram nobis is
whether the circuit court abused its discretion in denying the writ. Pierce v. State, 2009 Ark.
606 (per curiam). An abuse of discretion occurs when the circuit court acts arbitrarily or
groundlessly. Id. A writ of error coram nobis is an extraordinarily rare remedy, more known
for its denial than its approval. Grant v. State, 2010 Ark. 286, ___ S.W.3d ___ (per curiam).
Cite as 2011 Ark. 13
This exceedingly narrow remedy is appropriate only when an issue was not addressed or could
not have been addressed at trial because it was somehow hidden or unknown and would have
prevented the rendition of the judgment had it been known to the trial court. Clark v. State,
358 Ark. 469, 192 S.W.3d 248 (2004).
This court has previously recognized that a writ of error coram nobis was available to
address errors found in four categories: insanity at the time of trial; a coerced guilty plea;
material evidence withheld by the prosecutor; a third-party confession to the crime during
the time between conviction and appeal. Webb v. State, 2009 Ark. 550 (per curiam).
Appellant alleged error that fell within the last category. Appellant attached affidavits to his
petition from two men who were charged with the same crimes and who had entered
negotiated pleas in conjunction with the charges. Those affidavits stated that appellant was
not involved in the crime.
The claim in appellant’s petition was that these affidavits
represented confessions that were only made available after appellant’s trial. Appellant asserts
on appeal that, had the jury heard these two confessions, the resulting verdict may have been
different.
As was the case in Clark, appellant’s claim here fails on two bases. We held in Clark
that the confession of a codefendant convicted of the same crime was not a third-party
confession falling within the recognized category of error. Clark, 358 Ark. at 480, 192
S.W.3d at 255. Moreover, in order to merit relief, the asserted error must involve previously
hidden facts that raise a reasonable probability that the judgment of conviction would not
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have been rendered or would have been prevented if available at trial. See Buckley v. State,
2010 Ark. 154 (per curiam); State v. Larimore, 341 Ark. 397, 17 S.W.3d 87 (2000). The
testimony appellant asserts his codefendants would now provide does not rise to that level.
The evidence presented at appellant’s trial was that four men with guns came to
Kimberly Leggs’s house. Three of the men entered the house, tied up all of the adults in the
house, and left with Tyson Prosper after beating him and demanding drugs and money. The
three men forced Prosper into a waiting car and drove away. When a police car began to
follow the car, the driver jumped from the car. The officer following pulled in front of the
car, and, when the car crashed into the police car, appellant’s two codefendants fled. Prosper
was found tied in the back seat of the car.
Prosper identified appellant as one of the men in Leggs’s house and as the driver of the
car. A woman who had come to Leggs’s house either to use the phone or to buy drugs from
Prosper1 identified appellant as one of the men in the house. The police officer who followed
the car identified appellant as the driver of the car. Prosper testified that he was acquainted
with appellant and that he could identify him despite a scarf that he had wrapped around his
face because of a distinctive condition of appellant’s eye. One of the detectives on the case
testified that appellant’s codefendants had initially implicated appellant in the crime.
When a trial court considers a request for the writ based upon a third-party confession,
the fact of the confession alone is not ground for relief, and the confession must be
1
Helen Rollins testified that she came to the house to use the phone; Tyson Prosper
testified that she came to buy drugs from him.
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approached with some skepticism. Brown v. State, 330 Ark. 627, 955 S.W.2d 901 (1997) (per
curiam). The trial court must carefully scrutinize the complete circumstances surrounding the
confession and all the available evidence. Id. Under the circumstances here, we cannot say
that the trial court abused its discretion in finding that the writ should not issue.
Affirmed.
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